These demands were pressed upon a not reluctant Legislature. They addressed themselves at once to the work required of them, and soon devised, with reckless and unreasoning haste, a scheme of railroads covering the vast uninhabited prairies as with a gridiron. There was to be a rail-road from Galena to the mouth of the Ohio River; from Alton to Shawneetown; from Alton to Mount Carmel; from Alton to the eastern State boundary—by virtue of which lines Alton was to take the life of St. Louis without further notice; from Quincy to the Wabash River; from Bloomington to Pekin; from Peoria to Warsaw;—in all, 1350 miles of railway. Some of these terminal cities were not in existence except upon neatly designed surveyor's maps. The scheme provided also for the improvement of every stream in the State on which a child's shingle-boat could sail; and to the end that all objections should be stifled on the part of those neighborhoods which had neither railroads nor rivers, a gift of two hundred thousand dollars was voted to them, and with this sop they were fain to be content and not trouble the general joy. To accomplish this stupendous scheme, the Legislature voted eight million dollars, to be raised by loan. Four millions were also voted to complete the canal. These sums, monstrous as they were, were still ridiculously inadequate to the purpose in view. But while the frenzy lasted there was no consideration of cost or of possibilities. These vast works were voted without estimates, without surveys, without any rational consideration of their necessity. The voice of reason seemed to be silent in the Assembly; only the utterances of fervid prophecy found listeners. Governor Ford speaks of one orator who insisted, amid enthusiastic plaudits, that the State could well afford to borrow one hundred millions for internal improvements. The process of reasoning, or rather predicting, was easy and natural. The roads would raise the price of land; the State could enter large tracts and sell them at a profit; foreign capital would be invested in land, and could be heavily taxed to pay bonded interest; and the roads, as fast as they were built, could be operated at a great profit to pay for their own construction. The climax of the whole folly was reached by the provision of law directing that work should be begun at once at the termini of all the roads and the crossings of all rivers.
It is futile and disingenuous to attempt, as some have done, to fasten upon one or the other of the political parties of the State the responsibility of this bedlam legislation. The Governor and a majority of the Legislature were elected as Jackson Democrats, but the Whigs were as earnest in passing these measures as their opponents; and after they were adopted, the superior wealth, education, and business capacity of the Whigs had their legitimate influence, and they filled the principal positions upon the boards and commissions which came into existence under the acts. The bills were passed,—not without opposition, it is true, but by sufficient majorities,—and the news was received by the people of the State with the most extravagant demonstrations of delight. The villages were illuminated; bells were rung in the rare steeples of the churches; "fire-balls,"—bundles of candle-wick soaked in turpentine,—were thrown by night all over the country. The day of payment was far away, and those who trusted the assurances of the sanguine politicians thought that in some mysterious way the scheme would pay for itself.
Mr. Lincoln is continually found voting with his friends in favor of this legislation, and there is nothing to show that he saw any danger in it. He was a Whig, and as such in favor of internal improvements in general and a liberal construction of constitutional law in such matters. As a boy, he had interested himself in the details of local improvements of rivers and roads, and he doubtless went with the current in Vandalia in favor of this enormous system. He took, however, no prominent part in the work by which these railroad bills were passed. He considered himself as specially commissioned to procure the removal of the State capital from Vandalia to Springfield, and he applied all his energies to the accomplishment of this work. The enterprise was hedged round with difficulties; for although it was everywhere agreed, except at Vandalia, that the capital ought to be moved, every city in the State, and several which existed only on paper, demanded to be made the seat of government. The question had been submitted to a popular vote in 1834, and the result showed about as many cities desirous of opening their gates to the Legislature as claimed the honor of being the birthplace of Homer. Of these Springfield was only third in popular estimation, and it was evident that Mr. Lincoln had need of all his wits if he were to fulfill the trust confided to him. It is said by Governor Ford that the "Long Nine" were not averse to using the hopes and fears of other members in relation to their special railroads to gain their adherence to the Springfield programme, but this is by no means clear. We are rather inclined to trust the direct testimony of Jesse K. Dubois, that the success of the Sangamon County delegation in obtaining the capital was due to the adroit management of Mr. Lincoln—first in inducing all the rival claimants to unite in a vote to move the capital from Vandalia, and then in carrying a direct vote for Springfield through the joint convention by the assistance of the southern counties. His personal authority accomplished this in great part. Mr. Dubois says: "He made Webb and me vote for the removal, though we belonged to the southern end of the State. We defended our vote before our constituents by saying that necessity would ultimately force the seat of government to a central position. But in reality we gave the vote to Lincoln because we liked him, because we wanted to oblige our friend, and because we recognized him as our leader." To do this, they were obliged to quarrel with their most intimate associates, who had bought a piece of waste land at the exact geographical center of the State and were striving to have the capital established there in the interest of their own pockets and territorial symmetry.
The bill was passed only a short time before the Legislature adjourned, and the "Long Nine" came back to their constituents wearing their well-won laurels. They were complimented in the newspapers, at public meetings, and even at subscription dinners. We read of one at Springfield, at the "Rural Hotel," to which sixty guests sat down, where there were speeches by Browning, Lincoln, Douglas (who had resigned his seat in the Legislature to become Register of the Land Office at the new capital), S. T. Logan, Baker, and others, whose wit and wisdom were lost to history through the absence of reporters. Another dinner was given them at Athens a few weeks later. Among the toasts on these occasions were two which we may transcribe: "Abraham Lincoln: He has fulfilled the expectations of his friends, and disappointed the hopes of his enemies"; and "A. Lincoln: One of Nature's noblemen."
CHAPTER VIII
THE LINCOLN-STONE PROTEST
[Sidenote: 1837.]
On the 3rd of March, the day before the Legislature adjourned, Mr. Lincoln caused to be entered upon its records a paper which excited but little interest at the time, but which will probably be remembered long after the good and evil actions of the Vandalia Assembly have faded away from the minds of men. It was the authentic record of the beginning of a great and momentous career. The following protest was presented to the House, which was read and ordered to be spread on the journals, to wit:
Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery having passed both branches of the General Assembly at its present session, the undersigned hereby protest against the passage of the same.
They believe that the institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and bad policy, but that the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than abate its evils.